I would like to bring boack to life this post because four years later, the problems with soviet planes are still unsolved.

Firs of all, I ask you to forget politics and put your eyes on the game. I'm not interested in talking (here) about the politics of the cold war or the different economic models. I want to talk about the simulation and some aspects of the soviet planes in game.

Fuel comsumptionWe can agree that this was not important for the soviet designers. Ok for soviet planes in the 70s, 80s and 90s but moderns russian planes has the same design considerations than western ones and this is not considered in game.

Maintenance costWhy a soviet plane with the same age and condition as a western one has to pay double for maintenance actions?

Turnaround timesWhy an Il-62 (for example) has double turnaround time than a DC-8 that is a bigger plane? I´m surprised about how the nationality of a plane has influence in the time needed to put the catering and the fuel on board.

I would like to know why such differences and ask the admins to consider change this values in order to make Eastern planes playables.

Fuel comsumptionWe can agree that this was not important for the soviet designers. Ok for soviet planes in the 70s, 80s and 90s but moderns russian planes has the same design considerations than western ones and this is not considered in game.

Simply put the majority of fuel consumption data for Soviet planes in AWS is simply wrong. It has nothing to do with "gas is free in USSR" mentality. While some planes were simply atrocious when it comes to fuel consumption (Il-86 never received planned engines and used underpowered ones) most were reasonably matched against western counterparts.It's quite easy to find official documentation for all those planes but there are 2 big problems:1. It's all in Russian and the scan quality is often poor2. Flight manuals are often 400+ pages long, use different methods for data presentation and thus require significant amount of time to dig through.Couple months back I researched couple planes (IIRC: Yak-40, Tu-104, Il-12/14, Il-18) and compiled data for Sami, who gladly corrected it. I don't have time to further research it but for example Il-62's average fuel consumption in AWS is similar to full-thrust take-off average in the documentation with cruise average being couple thousand kg/h lower.

If we can find some volunteers with at least basic Russian skills it should be easy to correct fuel consumption and range data but it requires dozens of manhours.

Turnaround timesWhy an Il-62 (for example) has double turnaround time than a DC-8 that is a bigger plane? I´m surprised about how the nationality of a plane has influence in the time needed to put the catering and the fuel on board.

Very bad example :-) One of the drawbacks of the original Il-62 design was the lack of a cargo bay roller transfer system. This and some other problems meant that it was extremely slow to prepare. Most of these problems were corrected with Il-62M but AWS limitation of single turnaround time for one aircraft family comes into play. Some other Soviet planes were also designed with "baggage in hand" system in mind which also I believe is represented by longer turnarounds.Generally turnaround mechanic needs an overhaul in AWS.

I believe that wasn't possible since the planes were not certified over that part of the world.. Only a local certification existed.

i think it was more of a us led embargo agaisnt any nation that was supplied by the soviets, same applied to those who received military jets, with the exception of finland, who had to play both sides for preservation and to keep both sides happy.thus mig21s alongside saab drakkens and f18s

As per my source who once worked for an Afghan airline (and for a brief while tried starting one in Africa), Soviet aircraft werent really more expensive to operate than Western airlines on an operational basis. Purchase costs were cheaper ofcourse, but fuel burn was only marginally higher for some types 5.5-6 tons/hour for a TU154 vs 5/hr on the 727. Maintenance costs were nearly on par too.Nothing as dramatic as modelled in ASIM.

The issue was spare parts availability - coming from various factories spread throughout the Soviet Union - parts would take months to reach pushing up costs. With creative inventory control, many airlines in poorer parts of the world did manage to keep their fleets going.

In the real world, it wasnt costs that kept Soviet aircraft out of western skies - it was politics.

That said - this is a simulation site modelling real-life situation mainly in the West. So money-model is one way to implement that!

A more realistic way to implement would be to normalise the fuel & maintenance costs of Soviet planes to actuals and implement purchase restrictions. Only countries within the Soviet Bloc can purchase Soviet Bloc aircraft and so on. Non-Aligned countries (like mine) could purchase both!!

(.../...)A more realistic way to implement would be to normalise the fuel & maintenance costs of Soviet planes to actuals and implement purchase restrictions. Only countries within the Soviet Bloc can purchase Soviet Bloc aircraft and so on. Non-Aligned countries (like mine) could purchase both!!

As non-aligned countries are not the most powerful of the game, this would be neat. Though it would work as a balancing effect only up to 1989.